


Inverted World

by alabasterclouds



Category: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2011)
Genre: Age Play, Bed-Wetting, Buried Emotions, Crying, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dark Past, Diapers, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Non-Sexual Age Play, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape Aftermath, Rape Recovery, Wetting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-04-11
Packaged: 2018-06-01 16:56:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6528337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alabasterclouds/pseuds/alabasterclouds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lisbeth Salander is a product of a dark and abusive past. After her rape by Bjurman, she started to experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, including physical symptoms and panic attacks. Unable to handle or accept comfort, she ends up feeling alone and angry, until Mikael Blomkvist finds a way to soothe her.</p><p>Like ageplay? Follow me at alabasterclouds.tumblr.com</p><p>Warning: This is an ageplay fic, and will have elements of this in the text. If this isn't your kink, cool! Please don't ruin it for the rest of us - give it a pass. If you choose to read, please check the tags and consider yourself warned - there is a trigger warning on this fic for rape recovery and aftermath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inverted World

It always started with the same nightmare.

She'd never been able to forget the cold shackles around her legs; the way she'd flailed and screamed and he'd just placed a foot on her back, ground her more into the soft mattress. The luxury high-thread-count sheets had been suffocating, musty-smelling. She'd have vomited, except for the gag that tugged her mouth unmercifully into a garish permanent smile. It did nothing to muffle her screams, though she was sure, afterwards, that Bjurman hoped it would. 

That crushing weight on her back and the inexplicable, excruciating white-hot pain that lasted much longer than the rape had - it haunted her. She'd walked, waddled really, for a week, unable to even take a shit properly and without pain. No one had known, not really, not that anyone ever really looked at her anyway beyond to gape and stare at the piercings and tattoos and Mohawk. But there'd been blood in her panties and down her legs if she made the mistake of running briskly down the subway steps or forgot, for a brief moment, that she was torn. 

Even after her revenge, the knowledge that Bjurman would never forget his crime, the nightmare never went away. She still had the shaking panic, the bed-wetting. It didn't go away.

It wasn't that Lisbeth actually needed any more help than she'd already gotten over the years. If years of therapy hadn't done the trick, there was no way more therapy would help. She hadn't even considered it. Fuck all of them, anyway. They'd had her declared incompetent years ago - any report of what happened to her this time would be blown off, brushed away. She was considered just barely able to function in the normal world. They looked at her like a caged tiger, like she'd swipe and growl at any time, lash out and destroy something else. So that was out.

Nightly, then, she would change her wet grey longjohns, her soaked panties. She'd ball up on the couch, a threadbare blanket around her, hugging her pointed shoulderblades and covering the goosebumps on her skinny arms. And she'd practice the breathing she'd learned from that therapist they gave her when she was five and the same thing happened at home. Imagine a slowly expanding ball. Breathe with the expansion and collapse of the ball. 

Sometimes it worked; more times, it didn't. 

The shaking would rattle her bones, cause her teeth to chatter. She'd try to light a cigarette and end up dropping the lighter, the sudden loud clatter on the scarred hardwood floor like a gunshot in her brain. And the moaning would come from nowhere, like it was someone else, a long way away, moaning and rocking and chewing on her fingernails, chewing on her fingertips, pushing them into her gums so hard that there'd be blood on her teeth when the storm passed. 

She didn't cry.

She didn't sleep after awhile. If she didn't sleep, the nightmare would never come.

//~//

She'd been called up to Hedestad, up north, where the snow kept falling and the cold went straight through your bones. Mikael Blomkvist had charged into her apartment a few weeks earlier, on one of the few mornings she'd actually awakened refreshed after a night of wall-banging sex with a girl from the bar. He'd ignored what everyone else found scary; her crouched stance, her defensive expressions and body language. He'd blundered around the apartment, pushing through her usual clutter, pieces of computers scattered on tables and bookshelves, old McDonald's wrappers and cigarette ash on her coffee table. He'd thought to bring food; that was a plus, in her book. She never ate enough to satisfy her anyway.

As she'd wolfed down a sandwich, staring at the floor and hoping he'd stop talking for five minutes because his deep voice was like a jackhammer against her skull, he'd explained he needed her research skills to help catch a killer of women. And then it was his turn to look slightly alarmed; she imagined her face hardening, her eyes brightening with hate. A killer of women. Yeah, she was up for anything.

She'd agreed, her expressionless staccato voice drawing an amused expression. "What else?"

"I've got the documents here. Finish eating. I'll show them to you."

Lisbeth shoved the rest of her sandwich into her mouth, uncaring that her ragged shirt was covered in crumbs and splashes of coffee, and perfunctorily scrubbed a hand across her mouth and always slightly runny nose. In the living room, he handed her documents and she scanned them, her eidetic memory clicking along the way it used to before the rape. He'd tried to hand her the documents to keep, telling her she'd need more time with them, surely. And she'd just shrugged.

"I got it."

She always did.

He made her nervous, though. The large manly gestures he made, the way he bumped into things and came too close. She was used to indifference at best, fear ideally, from everyone she met. This man reminded her of Bjurman, but not because he was in any way threatening. No, it was his interest in her. He was one of the only people she had met in recent memory that could hold eye contact with her.

She scuttled back from him, felt the wall closing against her back, felt her breath sharpen and become shallow. But he didn't notice. He just got up. 

"You can come up to the cabin if you like. Makes it easier to work, I think." 

"Okay." She didn't say more, and he waited a beat, then shrugged, slamming the door a little too hard.

It was only when she looked down at her hands that she realized they weren't clenched into fists.

//~//

The ride up on the motorcycle was awful. Though she was wrapped in her customary fleece-lined leather, the cold cut straight through her. Several times she stopped just to catch her breath, pee, knock down another cup of coffee. Sitting for a long time still hurt, weeks later. The bastard had made sure of that. She was never going to forget him. By the time she arrived at the cabin, she was half-frozen and wondering why she'd agreed to do this at all. They had modern technology. He could bloody well call her.

But a few moments by the smutty whitewashed fireplace in the cabin, a scrawny cat wreathing itself around her booted legs, and she felt better. He'd given her a cup of coffee; she was jittery enough, but she accepted it without thanks, pulled her computer from its case and set herself up on his couch. He regarded her with grave, curious blue eyes as she clicked through and gave her preliminary findings in a few short sentences.

"There was a string of murders connected to the Biblical references. The police had about five; I found more." She detailed a few of the murders in graphic detail, enjoying his face turning to disgust as she explained how the women died. He finally held up a hand to stop her.

"That's good for tonight. I'll start moving out of the bedroom."

She shrugged, not looking at him. "I can sleep on the couch."

He shrugged back. She wondered if he was starting to understand her style of communication. "Fine."

Lisbeth curled up on the sagging sofa, her stomach growling as she realized that she hadn't eaten since she'd scarfed down two bags of chips at a small service station about a half hour away from the island, more than two hours ago. She ignored the gnawing hunger.

She'd had worse, after all.

//~//

Mikael woke up to muffled moans. At first, he forgot where he was, and thought it was his daughter, Pernilla, awakened with a nightmare, as she had many times as a young child. He rolled over to put a hand on his now ex-wife's back, but his hand met cold sheets and he realized he was in Hedestad and it was years later. Pernilla was at Bible camp, far from here. 

Creeping from the bed, wincing at the feeling of his bare feet on the cold floor, he pushed open the French doors to see his research assistant curled up in a ball on the couch, rocking back and forth, moaning and biting her hands. Her blanket had fallen to the floor, and her ripped T-shirt exposed her sharp, small shoulders. In the dead of a Hedestad night, it was freezing, and she looked cold. Mikael was already wishing he'd grabbed his robe as goosebumps rose on his bare chest.

He knew already how badly she startled, how nervous she was when he got too close. Vanger's lawyer hadn't given him too many details, but he'd mentioned that Lisbeth Salander had had a rough life. If this panic attack was anything to go by, he hadn't been lying. 

Mikael crept closer, making sure that he was in her line of sight at all times. She was staring straight ahead, her fingers in her mouth, a little drool wetting her chin. Something had set her off; she was usually very cool with him, very efficient. Her eyes caught him then, and widened. She curled up into herself even more and one word escaped her trembling lips. "No."

"Lisbeth," he said, trying for the tone he'd used with his daughter after nightmares. "Calm down. It's all right."

"No." Her voice was expressionless as usual, but she turned her head a little towards him, as if listening. Her fingers went back into her mouth and she chewed on them, harshly, he thought.

"It was only a dream," he tried to rationalize. By now, he was close enough to the couch to sit, but he stood beside it, feeling her discarded blankets brush against his bare legs. "Can I . . . can I help?" He reached out, his hand slow, but she recoiled like a snake, rearing back, a cry escaping her lips, and he didn't try to touch her again.

Close enough to her now, only feet apart, he could smell that she'd wet herself. It was a familiar smell; he'd changed enough of Pernilla's bedsheets over the years when she was a little girl. He noticed her body language, the stiff way she held herself, the rocking. He'd covered a story on abused foster children earlier in his career and recognized the signs. Post-traumatic stress disorder, maybe from a million myriad things.

Mikael's first instinct was to sigh. "Oh, little girl," he said, unthinkingly, and she relaxed just a bit, just enough that he noticed. She dropped one hand from her mouth and her gaze returned to him.

She didn't say anything, but her expression appealed. Help me.

He knelt in front of her, keeping the same soft tone. "You've had a little accident. Shall we get you out of those wet clothes?"

Lisbeth's gaze returned to the middle distance, but she didn't recoil as he gently moved the sheet wrapped around her down, off her lap. In the half-light, he could see a dark stain on her light grey pajama pants. She didn't seem ashamed, but she did start to shake as the sheet uncovered her lower half. Mikael moved slowly, trying not to startle her. When he had the sheet fully off, he tried a light touch on her knee.

She burst into tears.

"Shh, shh," he soothed, and removed his hand. Lisbeth stopped crying abruptly. She grabbed his hand in hers. Hers were cold and sweaty, a little wet from her chewing, but her grip was strong. He allowed her to hold his hand for a moment, then gently withdrew it.

"Where are the rest of your clothes?"

She seemed to wake up a little, her eyes coming back into focus, her hands pushing into her lap as she realized what had happened. "The backpack," was all she said. He got up and brought it to her, and wordlessly she pulled out a new pair of longjohns, a fresh pair of panties. The tears were still glistening on her cheeks. She said nothing else.

He put a hand on her shoulder, gently, and she didn't flinch away, but she did shrug it off after a moment and he took his cue to leave.

Settling back into his bed, he cast a glance through the frosted French doors. Her silhouette remained motionless. She still sat, staring down at the clothes.

And faintly, she still moaned.

//~//

Lisbeth didn't say anything to him the next morning. She sat on the counter, one leg in the sink, one dangling down, and munched a piece of buttered toast, her mug of coffee within easy reach. She'd already had two pieces of toast before Mikael woke up, snuffling and coughing like a bull in a pen. She'd listened with amusement as he'd heaved himself from the bed, mumbling bad-temperedly and stomping to the bathroom, splashing and pissing loudly, like most men. Women were so much quieter, she thought.

He came out, dressed in a robe, and she wordlessly pushed a mug of coffee towards him. If he thought her breakfast posture was strange, he didn't say anything. He simply leaned against the kitchen wall, drinking the coffee as if it was the elixir of life. About twenty minutes passed before his eyes were finally slitted open enough to actually look at her with some semblance of clarity. By that time, she was already sitting at the table, her fingers moving over her keyboard.

She'd balled up her wet clothes in a corner, meaning to throw them into the bag he kept at the door for their weekly trip to the laundromat up the road, attached to the island's service station and convenience store. But she hadn't gotten to it yet, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw him pick them up and take them to the bag himself. She tried not to flinch. She had some kind of shame about last night, deep inside, what she could remember, anyway.

Then again, if he wanted to pick up her disgusting dirty clothes, let him.

They worked most of the morning, until her stomach growled and he looked down at her with amusement. "Hungry?"

Lisbeth shrugged. "I could eat." She was starving.

He moved a little quickly, then, and she flinched, throwing herself back against the wall, squinting her eyes shut. She heard a slight sound of annoyance, and then she felt him close to her, his hand back on her knee. She almost pushed it off, but the warm weight was oddly centering and calming.

Mikael spoke, the same calm tone as last night making his voice soft. "It's all right. I'm not going to hurt you."

She opened her eyes, then, and saw he was sincere. Which was another odd thing - if he didn't want to hurt her, why wasn't he afraid she would hurt him, like everyone else? 

Lisbeth snorted. "I might hurt you."

He smiled, then. "I doubt it."

He was right. She wouldn't hurt him.

//~//

It happened again the next few nights. He woke up to the moaning, she was sitting in wet pants, on wet sheets, rocking and biting her hands. With her ragged black hair and her wide, frightened eyes, she was a pathetic sight, her thin little body shaking so hard the whole couch vibrated with her movement.

Mikael wondered if this was a regular thing. He also wondered, more practically, if the couch could hold up to it. He noticed the laundry pile growing by the day, with the towels she put under herself at night adding to the volume. They might need to start doing laundry more than once a week.

He was no closer to getting Lisbeth to accept comfort from him, but she did allow him to touch her knee, to sometimes touch her shoulder. She had allowed him tonight to help her stand up to change, but when he had tried to help her take off her wet pants, she'd started to cry.

It was about then that Mikael wanted to kill the person who had done this to her.

Oh, he'd read about men who did this to women, even women who did this to other women. He'd gathered she was fairly ambisexual from the partner he'd found her with when they had met, but that didn't stop most men, he'd learned. Being a journalist had opened his eyes to the atrocities of the world Lisbeth lived in, that most women lived in. That inverted world of justice, where he imagined this hadn't been the first assault, just the latest and most horrific one.

In that, though he didn't know it, he was right.

She'd trembled so badly as she stood that her legs had collapsed under her. He noticed the stain on her pants growing darker, and he clucked in sympathy under his tongue. "Oh, sweetheart."

He wasn't usually one for terms of endearment, but she was so pathetic, so disgusting, so in need, that it came out. And she responded. She took his hand in hers again.

So he tried again. He moved slowly, and she burst into tears again, but despite her stiffening and her trembling, he managed to pull down her wet pants and take them off. Her breath was harsh and gasping, and he wasn't about to try to take off her panties, but he went to her bag and took out another pair of pants, her last ones, as it appeared, and another pair of underwear, and place them beside her.

This time, Lisbeth responded. She struggled with her wet panties, but got them off. He briefly wondered if he should get her a wet cloth to clean herself with, but she'd already pulled up her fresh panties and was trying to tug on her clean pants. He, slowly, reached out and helped her get them into place before she pushed his hands away. Then she pushed the wet sheets onto the floor and lay on the other side of the couch, away from the wet towel, shivering slightly.

Mikael couldn't leave her like that. He put a gentle hand on her back and she turned quickly, like a cat ready to bite, but she didn't try to hurt him. She just looked into his eyes.

"Come on. You can't sleep there."

Wordlessly, she sat up and allowed him to help her off the couch. She smelled like stale urine and sweat, and if she had been anyone else, he would have suggested a shower, but she went ahead of him and climbed up onto his side of the bed, curling into a fetal position, and sighing, her lower lip trembling a little bit. So Mikael covered her up and lay down beside her, trying to keep as much distance as he could.

But before he fell asleep, he noticed she was pressed against him, her finger in her mouth.

//~//

Lisbeth was surprised when Mikael came home with the latest load of laundry and a package of adult nappies. It made sense in a practical way, but she still looked at him uncomprehendingly. 

He cleared his throat in the awkward way she was used to now, and didn't look at her. "To cut down on some of the laundry. I mean, and for your comfort, of course."

Her comfort? Lisbeth was so used to being uncomfortable in every aspect of her life that she continued to stare at him, mystified, until he spelled it out for her.

"You might not be so upset when you wake up with an . . . well, with an accident."

There might be truth to that. She shrugged and walked past him into the kitchen to get more coffee. She'd wear them if he wanted her to. She didn't really care one way or another. And anyway, it wasn't as if she could control any of what was happening. She was fucked up. Mikael would deal with it or he wouldn't. She was here to work only; she didn't really care what he thought of her, though she was surprised he spent so much time worrying about her and trying to take care of her.

Mikael slid into a chair across from her. "Are you hungry?"

"Why do you always ask me that?" she countered, though it was true. Lisbeth was nearly always hungry, or needing a cigarette, or needing more coffee.

"You don't seem to ever eat unless I'm eating."

"Why would you care?" She turned from him, the conversation over. "I need to work."

Instead of looking hurt, or looking angry, the way most people did around her, he just grinned. "I'll make some lunch."

And instead of just shrugging, she looked up at him. "Food is good."

He nodded, his face a little sad. "It is, indeed."

Later, Lisbeth sat in the bedroom as Mikael went for a walk to clear his head. They'd both been working non-stop for four hours, and he'd announced that he needed a break. She didn't care one way or another; she was used to the crick in her neck and the tightness of her shoulders that came from working at the laptop for hours on end. But when he left, she went into the bedroom, ostensibly to snoop through his things, until her gaze fell on the package of nappies.

They were soft to the touch, and noisy, reminding her suddenly very powerfully of the early foster homes she'd ended up in when she was a toddler and little girl. There had been a few kind people, a few almost motherly people. Not that prickly little Lisbeth ever connected to any of them, but it was nice to know that someone was there to pick you up if you fell down and make you clean and dry if you wet yourself. Lisbeth supposed that's why she felt indifferent, even slightly fond of, Mikael. He was one of those rare caring people, it seemed.

She took off her pants and panties and lay down on the bed, pulling out one of the nappies and arranging it so that she was lying on top of it. Taping it up on the sides was hard, but she managed to get it awkwardly on before she felt strange and like she wanted to rip it off. But instead of doing that, she just put her panties and black longjohns back on over top of it.

When she moved, she made a light, babyish noise. But she was warm, and the nappy was comfortable. So she sat down at her computer again, flicking through the same photos she and Mikael had looked at a thousand times, and faded back into her work.

//~//

That night, she didn't have a nightmare, but she did wet the nappy. Waking up blearily, she rubbed her eyes and realized that she was wet, but she wasn't cold. Instead, she felt a little overheated. Getting up, swinging her bare feet to the cold floor, she wandered into Mikael's room and shed her pajama pants, getting into bed beside him. He groaned in his sleep, but came awake almost instantly even as her tiny frame barely jostled the mattress. He turned over and looked at her.

"Hi."

"Hi," she said, her voice almost cheerfully staccato, but soft. She curled up and faced him, not bothering to put the blanket on. He looked a little bemused. It was clear she wasn't in any distress.

"Were you lonely?"

"No. It's wet," she said matter-of-factly, and his brow furrowed.

"The couch?"

"No." She squirmed a little, starting to feel the chill on her bare legs. Her nappy made a noise as she moved and light dawned on his face. He looked slightly amused, but there was another expression there, too - one of fondness.

"Ah. Do you need some help?"

Lisbeth considered. She didn't really need any help. But she was used to him caring for her in the middle of the night, now, and she didn't really feel like trying to take care of herself. "Yes."

He got up, stretching his powerful back, and she heard it pop and crack as he moved around to her side. He'd bought some baby wipes as well as the nappies, and he placed those on the bed, along with a fresh nappy. He looked as if he thought it was strange to be doing this; maybe it was, she thought. When he touched her, she started to have second thoughts. As he started to take off her nappy, she began to cry.

This paradox of the crying - this was new. Lisbeth didn't cry and hadn't even during her multiple assaults. Screamed? Yes. Teared up while screaming? Yes. But crying wasn't something she did because to her, it was absolutely utterly useless, and anyway in this case, Mikael wasn't hurting her. So this crying, which she never felt she really had any control over anyway, did nothing but increase her self-disgust and upset Mikael. And while she didn't usually care if she upset anyone, there was something about his face when she cried that tugged at something deep inside her.

He hushed her. "Shh, shh. It's all right. It'll be done in just a moment."

Mikael pressed a wet wipe into her hand, and she clutched it for a moment before she realized what he wanted her to do. She had developed, she'd noticed in the shower today, a pretty spectacular rash, and through her tears now she tried to wipe at herself before realizing it was awkward and hard and her rash stung. So she cried some more, and he took the wipe away from her and very gently did it himself. She flinched and withdrew from him. He bit his lip.

"I'm sorry."

He taped the nappy more tightly than she had at first, and it actually felt better, less awkward. And they were done, and she stopped crying immediately, as she usually did. He went to the bathroom and she curled up on her side again, pulling the blanket over her.

When he came back, she moved closer to his warmth, pressing into his bare back, taking comfort from him in the only way she knew how.

//~//

Lisbeth wore the nappies in the daytime just because she liked them. They were warm and plushy and made her feel safe. She didn't use them in the daytime, but she did grow to appreciate them when she woke up wet at night. Every night. She was no longer sleeping on the couch; instead, she went to bed with Mikael, allowing him to spoon her or curling up against his back, her fingers in her mouth, chewing gently.

This arrangement worked until the panic attacks started to appear in the daytime.

She fell off her motorcycle outside the convenience store - slipped on some black ice. She hadn't been going very fast, but the fall shook her up and her knee got severely scraped up. When she got shakily to her feet, she noticed that her knees were trembling and she had to sit down on the pavement. Her bike had some long scratches from where it had hit the pavement, but was otherwise unharmed.

Mikael's car was parked outside of the store - he was in picking up more milk and bread, which they seemed to go through at an alarming rate. He came through the door and immediately spotted her sitting on the wet ground. Her chin was shaking, but she wasn't crying. She watched him jog towards her, his face concerned.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes." She struggled up to her feet and watched the blood run down her leg, exposed where her black jeans had ripped open from being scraped briefly on the road. He hissed in concern.

"Ouch."

"It's okay." She went to pick up her bike, but a sudden tremor took hold of her and she started to shake violently. He grabbed her shoulders and steered her to the side of the road just as a car blew by and she vomited down her front. 

"Shh. It's okay. It's okay. We'll get you cleaned up."

"It's wet," she moaned, and his face registered surprise. He didn't know she was wearing the nappies in the daytime. He looked down at her, but she clutched her front and he nodded. 

"We'll get you changed, too."

She barely registered that he was putting her in the car, running inside to the store owner and asking if someone could bring the motorcycle back to the cabin. She sat in the warmth of his car, slowly realizing that she smelled terrible from the vomit and her nappy was getting cold. Her leg stung and she bit her lip, feeling tears at the back of her eyes, pressing against her head, which was pounding. She never used to take motorcycle falls like this. She was used to getting back on and continuing with her life as if nothing had happened.

He came back out, something in a plastic bag, and to his credit, barely wrinkled his nose at the terrible way she smelled. 

They drove back, a ten-minute ride, and she chewed on her finger, not even noticing that it was muddy from the road. Mikael said nothing, but he put his hand on her unhurt knee and left it there for the ride back. She didn't flinch. She was used to him now.

He ran a bath for her. She stood in front of him and lifted her arms; he understood. She started to cry when he lifted her sodden shirt off, but she rubbed her hands into her eyes and tried to calm down when he removed her torn pants and wet socks. He left her wet nappy until the last, and she put her hands on his shoulders and sobbed heartbrokenly as he took it off.

"Shh, shh. Oh, Lisbeth. Shh."

Her leg was a mess. She whimpered as it hit the hot water, but she could deal with the pain. Her sore bottom, on the other hand, really hurt. She bit her lip and refused to look at him. He started to leave.

"No. Stay."

"I can go. If you want some privacy, that is," he added, kneeling down beside her in the bath. She shook her head.

"Please."

So he sat beside her as she washed her cuts and rubbed soap into her hair. She washed away the smells of vomit and the road and fear. And he sat beside her, occasionally talking, until he asked her.

"Is the work too much?"

She peered over the side of the tub at him. "What do you mean?"

"The photos. The stories. Are they too much right now?"

She scoffed, looking down into the water. "Nothing is too much. Don't be ridiculous."

He leaned against the wall; she knew he wished he had a cigarette. There was a silence; she splashed water onto her shoulders, which were getting cold. He breathed in, out, in his typically loud way. She listened to his breathing and closed her eyes.

He asked, softly, "What happened to you?"

She stiffened. "What makes you think anything happened to me?"

"Lisbeth." His voice was reproving, and she glared at him. 

"I don't have to tell you."

"No, you don't. But I think since it's been two weeks and I'm no longer a stranger, it might be nice to have some idea about why my research assistant is in my bed every night wearing nappies."

She looked down at the water, her eyes blurring. Annoyed, she scraped a wet hand across them and he sighed.

"I'm sorry. Of course you don't have to say anything. I shouldn't have asked."

"I was raped." The words were flat; they fell on the air heavily. "That's all."

"Hmm." He said nothing else, and she didn't offer anything else. After a moment, she stood up, shivering.

"I'm done."

"You're freezing." He wrapped a towel around her and made to leave the bathroom, but she caught his sleeve, and after a moment, he put his arms around her, gently, enough that she could escape if she needed to.

Instead, she rested her wet head against his shirt and sighed.

//~//

Mikael held her to him, her tiny body like a bird fluttering against his chest. She was so very little, probably not even 100 lbs. She was covered in tattoos and scars, the most interesting a curving dragon intricate over her left shoulder. And she wouldn't put her arms around him, but she leant into him, her face buried in his shirt. He knew that was as close as she'd get - as much as she could tell him she needed to be held.

So he held her and then he led her to the bedroom, where she pulled out a threadbare T-shirt, a pair of soft jogging pants, full of holes. The girl barely had clothes that weren't in some way torn or threadbare. She shakily put on her shirt, but then stopped and clung to the side of the bed, her body trembling. So he took over.

Lisbeth was so skittish, it was like doing a dance with her. He moved slowly, she recoiled. He asked her to raise her hips; she did so, but not without flinching. He knew now that she liked the nappies, so he put one on her, noticing how she relaxed once it was on. She helped him with the pants. Then, completely by surprise, she leant forward into his shoulder, and gently, he put his arms loosely around her again.

Her leg needed a dressing of some sort, so he let go only to have her whimper and attach to his sleeve.

"Ah, no. I need to fix your leg."

"It's fine. It's a scrape."

"It probably hurts. And it will get infected if you leave it untreated." He's amazed that she wasn't aware of this; what he didn't know is that she was, she just didn't care. She's stitched up her own cuts and sloshed vodka over them. She was aware.

She pouted, then, her almost colourless eyes glimmering with tears. She was very fragile, he realized; more so than she was willing to ever let on. He was actually amazed, based on the research he's done into her background (hey; tit for tat), that she seemed this comfort-seeking when usually she's labelled "antisocial", "attachment-phobic", "cold", "unable to relate to other people". Oh, and the big one. "Legally incompetent. Mentally insane."

And now Mikael wondered if it wasn't so much that she was naturally antisocial as it was that she'd been made that way. That multiple people have hurt her, multiple people have thrown her away. He'd be antisocial, too.

So he smiled at her. "You can come."

And wordlessly, she got up, followed him into the bathroom, and sat on the counter while he got out the hydrogen peroxide and the bandages. She didn't flinch when he cleaned the long, multiple scrapes on her leg. She just shrugged when he apologized to her. 

When she was finally bandaged up, she leant against him again, and he realized that it was going onto dinnertime and she was probably hungry. His own stomach growled.

"Are you hungry?"

"I could eat." Always the offhand remark. Never seeming to acknowledge her own needs until he'd find her eating a piece of bread or a Happy Meal from the McDonalds in the town across the bridge. 

She rubbed her nose as they went to the kitchen. She looked very fragile, very small. And soon enough she angrily slapped a stack of papers from off the table and slammed her fist down, in some form of frustration.

He raised his eyebrows. He hadn't seen her look angry before. 

"This is bullshit," she hissed. Then she started to cry again. 

He sighed. "Are you okay? Shh, shh." He reached out for her shoulder, but she shrugged him away and then rubbed her fist across her runny nose again.

"Lisbeth." When he said her name, she stopped, and instead, walked over to him.

//~//

Her name. It was rarely spoken, except in courtrooms, or by her old guardian. People called her "Miss Salander", "you", or "she". She was used to complete indifference, fear, disgust. And Mikael had none of that. In fact, he had only shown concern. She wasn't sure what to do with that.

But she needed human contact, as much as she pretended she didn't. She needed to be cared for. And she hated being touched, but he was warm.

So she reached out, and fastened her arms around his waist.


End file.
